IT is certainly impossible in the present State of things , that this Government should subsist , and much less be able to bear its part in the Alliance against our Common Enemies , unless there be great Sums of Money given . These are the Sinews of War and all other Business . Our dear-bought Experience has taught us what vast Taxes are absolutely necessary to maintain those Armies and Fleets which are requisite for our Security , and for the Defence of our Religious and Civil Rights : and provided we attain those Ends , it will not be thought hereafter we have bought them too dear . A wise and good Man will rather chuse , if it come to that pass , to enjoy one half of his Estate with the Liberty of his Conscience , and the Preservation of his Birthright , than to possess a double or treble Proportion of Riches , whilst his Mind must be enslaved to the Superstition of Knavish and Interested Priests , his innocent Friends and Country-men sacrificed to the Idol of Arbitrary Power ( as we not long since saw it practised ) and the Title that is left him to his own Possessions and Liberty only precarious and during Pleasure .

The Question therefore with all sober Men and sincere Protestants will not be , Whether we shall maintain our Liberty by supporting this Government , and enabling it to carry on the War ; Nor consequently , Whether we shall raise Sums of Money proportionable to that end ; but only , What will be the best Manner and Method of raising Money , so as may be most for the Ease of the Subject , and above all for the upholding our Constitution , and securing those Ends for which we took up Arms ; and that was not any Personal Regard whatsoever , but the Recovery and Security of our Rights and Liberties , which had been unjustly invaded . This is the thing we must always keep in our Eye , and steer our whole Course by this Pole-Star ; otherwise the Hazards we have hitherto exposed our selves to , and the Success with which God has blessed us will little avail us , whilst by flying one Extream we run into another .

The Way which has been most discoursed of by some who pretend a great Zeal for the present Government , and which seems to be most agreeable to some People , is , to lay a HOME EXCISE upon things sold in the Market . This is the way used in Holland , and the like was practised in England in the time of our Civil Wars . But because I cannot approve this manner of Taxing at this time in this Kingdom , as thinking it of the utmost Hazard to the present Settlement , and apparently destructive to the Ends of it , I shall set down my Reasons , with as much Plainness as I can , that so if other Men be convinced by them , I may have the Satisfaction of reflecting , that I have been useful in some degree , in suggesting those things which may contribute to the maintaining and continuing the Liberty of my Country ; which as it is dear to me above all things in the World , so , in my humble Opinion , it is very much concerned in this Point .

My first two Considerations in reference to such an Excise are , That if the Parliament should grant it , they neither know what they grant , nor can ever hope to see an end of such a Grant as that is . To make this out , I shall give a short Historical Account of the Excise now in being , that so we may judg of Hercules by his Foot , which I think will afford us such Measures as cannot easily deceive us .

Our Ancestors , whose chief Care was to maintain those Rights and Privileges which distinguished them so advantageously from all the other People of these Western Parts of Europe , and who delivered those Privileges to us as our best Inheritance , did constantly avoid this sort of Tax , knowing its danger , and abhorring the Servile Look of Bureaux in their Market-Places , and miserable Fellows to come into their Houses like Searchers , as if they had hid some Criminal , or conceal'd some Arms or Papers to the Prejudice of the Government . This Example of our Ancestors , with the good Success it has had , I should think , ought to weigh a great deal with us in a matter of this Importance : to which , if we add the Condition of the French , and others of our Neighbours , who are loaded with an infinite Number of Entries , Imposts , in a word , Excises of all sorts ( which at first were contrived and imposed upon specious Pretences of great necessity of the State , but never were , nor will be let go by those who have found the Sweetness of them ) this will add great force to our Argument . But we must come nearer the Point , and shew how , and in what manner Excises have been raised in England , and what use has been made of them , together with the Artifices by which they have been procured .

The first Excise raised in England was in the time of our Civil Troubles and Disorders . Neither did those who raised it adventure upon this way , till they had tried all others to supply the Necessities into which they were brought ; and it had never been paid at that time , but for the Army which was then kept up , as appeared in the Sedition of the Butchers and others upon that occasion . Yet they who imposed the Excise in those days , omitted nothing that might help to sweeten so bitter a Potion . They urged the great Necessity there was of it , which was at least equal for those who then raised it , with any that can be now pretended to carry on this War . To make it pass the easier , they began it in the most modest way they could devise . If I mistake not , it was at first but for a Month or two , or three Months at most . They were sensible how averse the Nation was to this way of Taxing , and therefore durst not in their first Attempt adventure further . When the Necessity of Affairs , and the Straits in which they found themselves forced them to go on with the Excise , yet they would perswade the People it should last but a little while , and be presently over . But for all that Pretence we know too well it has not ceased to this very day . When the Serpent gets his Head into a Hole , 't is no hard matter for him to draw his whole Body after it . Wise Men , like good Physicians , must oppose the beginnings of Evils . 't is easy to prevent Mischiefs , which it is not easy nor possible to remedy . The Ability of Politicians is known by their foreseeing and obviating Inconveniences , too strong to be removed when they are once established .

Soon after the Return of King Charles the Second , the House of Commons expressed a Desire ( as their Predecessors often had done ) to take away the Court of Wards , and they had long Deliberations how to settle upon the Crown a Recompence for it . Many Ways were propos'd , but at last it was thought best to lay it on Land , and they agreed the Sum to be 100000 l. per Annum , and appointed a Committee to settle an equal Rate upon every County towards it . This would have procured another great Advantage to the Nation , by bringing in a just and equal way of Taxing all the Lands of England according to their true Value . The Committee in pursuance of the Order of the House , having taken great Pains in settling a new Rate , at length agreed upon one , and reported it to the House , and it is entred in the Journal . But whilst they were taking all these Pains , the Court was privately informed by some self-designing Men , that it would be of much greater Advantage to them to get a Grant of the Excise upon Beer and Ale , since the Value of that was unknown ; and they assured them that it would amount to a Sum vastly beyond what the Parliament intended them in lieu of the Court of Wards . These Men encouraged the Court to undertake this Work , and promised their own Assistance and Endeavours for the Success of their Proposal . Hereupon the Court resolved to push for the settling of the whole Excise ; and by threatning privately the Members of that House with a Dissolution , and by giving to some considerable Places , they got a Question put , To settle one Moiety of the Excise ( which had been invented and raised on evident Necessity in the times of Civil War , and not granted longer than a few Months ) upon the Crown in Fee , in lieu of the Court of Wards , and the other Moiety on the King for his Life . The former part to give the Moiety in Fee , in Recompence of the Wardships , was carried in the Affirmative ; tho in truth it was the giving 300000 l. a Year for one ; for which that House is justly blamed , and will be so , as ill Husbands for the Kingdom , and unfaithful to their Trust . A great Parliament-Man undertook to make out , that it was the giving away all the Barley-Land of England . The other part , viz. to give the other Moiety for Life , as much as that House was influenced by the Court , was first carried in the Negative , which enraged them to such a degree , that the next day a Message was sent to the House to let them know they were to be dissolved a Month after . This was a strange and unusual Message . They might have been quickned to dispatch Publick Bills , and told the Session would be but short : But the Message , as sent , put Men throughout the Kingdom on supplanting them . If the Members staid in Town , their several Interests in their Countries were endangered : if they went down , the settling of Excise for Life might be carried in their Absence . This was the Dilemma the Court had brought them to ; and accordingly it was granted before that Session ended . All this was compassed by the Artifices and Clamours of the Court-Party , who , we since have seen , aimed at nothing lower than the getting such a Revenue in the Possession of the Crown , as might enable them to govern by Arbitrary Power , and abolish Parliaments .

Upon the Death of K. Charles what necessity was there to continue the Excise to K. James , I mean the Moiety then determined ? Could any thing under a Popish Prince be a greater Security to the Protestant Religion and Liberty of the Kingdom , than the Smalness of the Revenue ? And was it not the main Argument of King Charles and the Clergy against passing the Bill of Exclusion ? They urged , that tho the Crown should come to a Popish Successor , he could not be able to force his Religion upon the Nation , by reason of the falling off of the one half of the Excise at K. Charles his Death , and thereby the ceasing of so great a Branch of the Revenue . If ever an Excise would have been let fall , no doubt it would have been then . But we see in the Instance of K. James his Parliament , when Excise is once begun , there is no End of it to be expected . That Parliament gave him for his Life what was fallen , and not only so , but an Increase upon Linen , Wine , Tobacco , &c. worth near the double . It 's easy to find a Necessity to continue Excise ; and where that is wanting , yet one Parliament must be as kind as another , or else it is want of Respect to the present Crowned Head .

This Principle , That the House must ever be as kind to the present Government as their Predecessors were to others , will carry things at any time against the Interest of the Kingdom ; and therefore Money should not be raised by the Commons in that manner , in which the House may be pressed with Arguments they have formerly experienced have wrought on their good Nature , beyond the Interest of their Country that sent them .

If it be said , Are not the Parliament Masters of their own Resolutions , and may not they safely trust themselves , since it is in their Power to put on end to an Excise , whensoever they think there is no farther Occasion for it ? To this I answer , They are not so much Masters of their Resolutions as some think . Solicitations go a great way , Pretences are specious , Men are frail . Taxes of this kind do not immediately touch the Members of Parliament themselves , who are landed Men , and therefore not so directly concerned to get them off . To this I add , that our wisest and best Policy is to keep a Parliament out of the Temptation of doing that which may prove the Ruin of the Nation . Men do not care for being thought disaffected to a Government , as it is always thrown in their dish , if they offer at diminishing any Revenue that has been given , and are not as forward as other People to gratify the Crown and the Ministers in all their Expectations .

't is well known that eight hundred thousand Pounds per annum , or thereabouts , with good Husbandry , will discharge all the Expences of the Government in time of Peace . Therefore in the Year 1660 , when the Court had screwed their Demands to the highest , they desired only the standing Revenue to be 1200000 l. and whatever they got afterwards was not on pretence that more was necessary , but that they had not so much . That very standing Revenue which was settled in King Charles's time was so great , that every body remembers , when a great Army was raised , the House of Commons was tried to give but one 300000 l. per annum more , which if the Court could have obtained , no one doubts but it was designed there should have been an end of Parliaments . And that very thing was pressed so handsomly , and so much to the purpose by some who were then Members of the House of Commons , that the very Pensioners in that Parliament voted against the Augmentation of the Revenue which was desired , lest Parliaments should end all at once , and their Pensions with them .

The Revenue now in time of Peace will yield above all Charges 1500000 l. per annum : if more be given in the way of Excise , and it should be continued , 't is the giving up the very Being of Parliaments .

There are still many other Reasons against this way of Taxing by an Excise . I have shewed already , that this is a giving Men know not what . That Moiety of the Excise given in 1660 for one hundred thousand Pounds per annum , hath since proved worth three and a half . That which King Charles desired as 300000 l. when it was got by King James , proved to be worth more than double that Value . And to this I may add , that the more such Revenues prove , if they should be continued , the more dangerous to the Nation . This is a troublesome and a slavish sort of Tax . The present Government came in upon a Foot of Liberty ; what was the Reason that the Chimney-Money was taken off , but only this , that every Man might have his House free ? Shall the Nation be mock'd by taking off a Feather , and in the room of it laying on a Mill-stone ? This is the way to bring a Lord-Dane into every one of our Families .

The Difficulty of raising this Tax will be very great : the People of England disrelish it extremely . I have heard some Members of the House of Commons say , they would be hanged up at the Door of the House before they would consent to it . All that lived in the late times remember with what Difficulty the Excise was raised by those who were then in the Government ; and 't is certain they could never have compassed it , but by the Terror of the Army then kept up . Now if the Parliament should raise Money in this way to pay our Army , and should be necessitated , as they were , to keep ●p a standing Army to gather it , we shall be at a fine pass : The Money must be raised to pay our Armies , that they may carry on the War vigorously against our Enemies abroad ; and instead of any such Service from them , they must be kept at home to raise the Excise .

The common Argument for an Excise , that it will spare our Lands , is grounded upon a false Supposition . This is not a sparing our Lands , but a charging them for ever with double what is needful . The dearer the Farmer pays for his Commodities , the less Rent he will pay ; and the less his Product yields him clear , accordingly he must value his Farm . The more , for example , is laid on Lead , the less will Woods and Oar yield ; and so of other Commodities .